One of the original members of the sports department here at The National had a farewell event at a local hotel the other night. Small, quiet and informal, some liquid refreshment out on the patio.
I used my time there to try to find out a bit more about the history of the department, which makes up for its brevity with lots of comings and goings.
The paper has been in existence for less than three years, but has had four sports editors. A staff that had perhaps 20 writers and editors when the paper began publishing, in April of 2008, has maybe a half-dozen or The Originals still in the department. And remember, this churn has happened in less than three years.
The paper lost a significant chunk of its institutional memory as Bill Johnson went home to England. Among other things, he covered UAE golf and tennis and sailing, and I hope someone thought to ask him for his contact/phone list as he worked his final days.
One of the final stories he did was his ranking of the top 10 golf courses in the country, which was handy and perhaps a bit controversial, for the clubs that didn’t make the cut. But I trust his opinion on this matter; he played a lot of golf here, and goes back to rainy England with the tan to prove it.
The churn in employees has been, I believe, mostly about expats going home … about people arriving here and finding they didn’t quite fit in the newspaper or the country (or management deciding that for them) and about other opportunities that arose and seemed more inviting. Whether across the room or out of the newspaper.
Consider the sports editors. The first went home to England after a few months of the paper’s existence. The second was fired. The third left to create a public relations company here in the UAE with another former National editor. The fourth has been the SE for almost a year now, which could make him the longest-serving in the job.
It is always interesting to get someone else’s take on the history of the place. Where the sports people were placed, in the room, when the paper began. Where they went after that (narrowly missing being stationed next to the toilets), and where we are now. (My experience has been that many newspapers try to hide/sequester sports people because they are too loud or too exuberant or use salty language.)
I also appreciate someone else’s takes on sports people who have come and gone. You hear from some quarters that a certain guy was a disaster … and then someone else tells you, “No, he was pretty good.”
From covering international events and working at two newspapers outside the U.S. I have come to find that sports journalists the world over seem to share many characteristics.
They love what they do. Many are stat wonks. Many of them have an unhealthy attachment to the deadline rush that is particularly keen in sports departments. They are perhaps a bit crabbier and skeptical than other journalists. And they are convinced they could do any other job in a newsroom but that few in the newsroom could do what they do — hit deadline from a venue and bang together a section in a matter of minutes.
One of the guys who could write clean copy on deadline, come within 10 words of the length the desk asked for and cover just about any sport ever invented … has just left. He will be missed. But his absence becomes an opportunity for someone else to live The National experience.
3 responses so far ↓
1 Nick Leyva // Mar 26, 2011 at 8:17 PM
You better see if he had SAILPHONE, GOLFPHONE, and TENNISPHONE contact lists!
2 Chuck Hickey // Mar 26, 2011 at 9:40 PM
And BADPHONE. Filled with only Greedy Sandra Guidy’s number.
3 Dennis Pope // Mar 28, 2011 at 7:11 AM
SAILPHONE!
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